The present invention relates to a process for obtaining heparin from natural sources.
Heparin has been available to the medical industry for a long time as a naturally occurring anticoagulant. It is still indispensable in modern medicine and finds an ever broadening range of applications.
In recent years, a number of methods have been developed for isolating heparin from heparin-containing animal tissues, such as lungs, liver, etc., using increasingly mild procedures. Recently, heparin extractions have been made primarily from intestinal slime (mucosa) from pigs, cattle, and sheep (e.g., British Pat. No. 754,885; German Pat. No. 1,228,241; U.S. Pat. No. 3,058,884; and German Pat. No. 1,253,868). Such raw materials have the disadvantage of a limited shelf life since they decompose readily. Although the shelf life can be prolonged by freezing, this is an unsatisfactory solution due to the concomitant considerable increase in expense and the additional technical processing required. Moreover, during the extraction process, the factory personnel as well as the residents in the vicinity are all too often confronted with an intolerable environment due to the unpleasant odor connected with the process. Consequently, there continues to be a need for an alternate method of extracting heparin from natural sources.